Today in an unexpected announcement Garmin, makers of all types of GPS devices, threw their hat into the cell phone market ring with the Garmin nuvifone. The nuvifone’s cornerstone is still as a GPS device but it is also a full-on GSM HDSPA smartphone with a large 3.5-inch touchscreen and modes for calling, searching and viewing maps. It even sports an internet browser with Google local search built in.

Like other Garmin GPS devices the nuvifone carries pre-loaded maps of North America or Europe, a media player, millions of points of interest and voice promted turn-by-turn directions. But with this one there is much more. Ever forget where you parked your car in the parking lot? When you take the nuvifone out of its mount it will take note of where its at and help you find it later.

A “Where am I?” feature gives you quick access to the nearest address, intersection, closest hospital or just your latitude and longitude coordinates whenever you need it. Hey, you never know when you’ll need them to properly set up your telescope. A built in camera comes standard and of course it will geo-tag your photos, and Garmin Online brings real-time traffic, stock info, sports action and news right to the device. And of course don’t forget email, text and instant messaging.

ASUS has a new, very cool looking GPS they are bringing to market with among the many nice features has actual textured, realistic 3D landmarks in major areas which display along the route to help make navigating tricky intersections a little easier. The ASUS R700 also rotates the display as you drive to give the driver a perspective from the direction they are going. The device comes with the recently popular wide 4.3″ LCD touchscreen display and measures a mere half-inch thick.

The R700 also houses Bluetooth features to handle hands free calling, answer calls and even read out SMS messages. As many GPS devices it also will handle playing MP3 music files, videos and displays pictures. Sound from the device for the multimedia, driving directions and phone conversations can be pumped through the cars FM stereo with the built-in FM transmitter. If that’s not enough ASUS has another model - the R700t - that features TMC (Traffic Message Channel) built-in to inform you of traffic delays or weather conditions along your route and suggest an alternative.

Pocketfinder is a small personal GPS unit. It’s goal is to help parents keep track of their children when playing or in situations where you are caring for someone with down syndrome, Alzheimer’s, autism or other handicap.

If you wanted to, you could even use the device to keep track of one of your valuable assets as it’s only about the size of an Oreo cookie. You locate the Pocketfinder at any given time, but that’s not all. You can also set up safe zones and the Pocketfinder will alert you if it goes beyond your set boundaries.

In addition to a few other neat robots, WowWee has introduced Rovio, a new “telepresence” robot that’s outfitted with the latest in micro-GPS technology from Evolution Robotics. Rovio has a Wi-Fi-enabled Web-cam that allows you to patrol your home while you’re away, via an Internet-enabled PC, console or mobile phone.

This one is an interesting looking robot. With the new GPS system you can drive the robot with shortcut “go-to” commands. For instance, “go to the dining room”. This makes it easy to control the robot remotely over the Web or even from your mobile phone. It also has what they call a “patrol mode” where it automatically sends you pictures of locations you want to check.

Clarion unveiled at CES this week a new mobile Internet device based upon the Intel Menlow platform, which is comprised of the Silverthorne processor and the Poulbo chipset. It is called MiND (Mobile Internet Navigation Device) and its currently in development.

The Clairon MiND is best described as an extremely portable device. The feature list is quite long - its maker describes it best by stating the MiND will “provide users access to navigation, high-speed Internet connection, digital music and videos, hands-free phone connection (via Bluetooth), built-in camera and many other innovative entertainment features.” It is an in-car device designed to make you crash easier…er, we mean keep you entertained either in-auto or out.

Here’s some good news if you own a PSP and are in any European country. ‘Go!Explore’ is coming as early as Spring, to turn your PSP into a GPS receiver. Roam anywhere in the city and even if you lose direction, your PSP will work as a GPS navigation system.

Just attach the GPS receiver into the device and load a UMD that contains the relevant maps for your area. That means a 3D-map with relevant landmarks marked on it, in the palm of your hands.

Cobra Electronics has some designs on more GPS market share by showing off at CES its new NAV ONE 5000 GPS device. It is priced at around $510.

The NAV ONE 5000 sports a five-inch touch screen, showing “20 percent more of the road ahead compared to traditional widescreen navigation units” and “on-screen text that is 50 percent larger than the competition.” There’s also enhanced backlighting, speed and red light camera location alerts and the ability to locate over 800 brands on-screen via categories.

Magellan is showcasing a new line of RoadMate GPS units this week at CES that feature a widescreen display and optional traffic integration in the higher end models. The new 1400 series RoadMate models use a larger 4.3-inch widescreen touchscreen with three new models varying in features and price from $299 at the low end up to $399 with all the bells and whistles.

All the new models feature the widescreen view, 3D mapping, trip planner, QuickSpell for fast entering of addresses and an SD card slot for maps. The 1400, which is the $299 base model comes with maps of the continental US, Hawaii and Puerto Rico along with points of interest. Moving up to the RoadMate 1412, Magellan tacks on text-to-speech, maps of Canada and Alaska and another $150 to the price of the 1400.

Garmin has a new exercise gadget debuting at CES this year called the Forerunner 405, designed for runners to aid in training and track routes. The new 405 is also a little more stylish than previous models with similar functionality, keeping the size to a minimum so the gadget doesn’t look like such a gaudy chunk of electronics on your wrist.

The Forerunner 405 is GPS enabled and allows outdoor runners to keep track of their speed, distance, heart rate and location through the watch. This model also features a cool new bezel around the display that lets users navigate and change settings on the watch by simply tapping it and sliding their finger around the metal circle.

Magellan is breaking GPS ground at CES by unveiling what it claims is the first GPS model to enable users to search for local events - from concerts to local library events - as well as local businesses and services. The Magellan Maestro Elite 5340+GPRS is set to price at around $1,300.

The Magellan Maestro Elite 5340+GPRS makes use of a wireless GPRS connection to let one search Google for businesses in a specific neighborhood, providing detailed, Internet-based information about those businesses. This connection will also deliver to users real-time traffic information, local weather forecasts, and makes it possible for users to wirelessly send addresses and notes to the GPS device directly from a PC with an Internet connection.

Garmin is showcasing at CES the new flagship for its popular line of nüvi GPS devices. This model is known as the Garmin nüvi 880 and it is set to price at around $1,070.

The Garmin nüvi 880 has a long list of features to make even the most picky GPS users happy. To start off, advanced speech recognition technology, communicated to the 880 through a push-to-talk wireless remote, lets you activate a variety of voice commands which correspond to most common tasks on the unit. The Garmin nüvi 880 also draws upon the MSN Direct network to provide a variety of on-demand information points, including traffic, fuel prices, movie listings and news/stocks.

Sure it’s nice to be able to get the same functionality of your electronic gadgets into a smaller package, but smaller isn’t always better for everything. Having a pocket-sized GPS mounted to your dash can sometimes be like an eye chart test for finding destinations and points of interesting while driving your vehicle in traffic. Due to this Garmin is debuting a larger line of GPS units with a big 5.2-inch touch screen, and is packing it with features.

The big screen makes viewing and interacting with the touchscreen easier at arms length, and since they had the extra room they threw in quite a few extra tools. For starters you still get the voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions, but it will also save up to 10 routes, keep track of where you have been, find points of interest as well as school zones and safety cams, shows terrain info and you can even have a little vehicle icon instead of the generic arrow representing your car. A couple of other pretty nifty features include an external video input which lets you have video connected to the GPS, such as a back-up camera on your big rig and an FM transmitter so you can listen to the MP3’s loaded on the device through the car’s FM stereo, not to mention the loaded games and audio books owners can take advantage of.

Today Asus announced the launch of its award-winning GPS smart phone in the U.S. early this year and will be showing the P527 at CES 2008. The Asus P527 already won one of the CES Innovation Design and Engineering awards for 2008.

It’s a pretty nice looking device and has several versatile functions, but the most unique ones have to be Travelog and Location Courier. Travelog lets users record travel routes and export data to Google Earth, while Location Courier acts like an S.O.S. beacon and is at the ready to send a user’s GPS position to up to five preset numbers. Basically, the Asus P527 has the features of a cell phone, navigator and PDA.

Goodyear is a name you recognize when it comes to tires, but now they’ve entered a license agreement with The NCC, who will be launching its first line of Goodyear branded, driver-friendly GPS navigation systems at CES 2008 in Las Vegas, January 7-10. They are calling it a “rugged GPS system,” and all eight models will have features never before seen on mobile navigation systems, like remote control to access hands-free communication, via a single quick-touch button to answer and hang up calls. It’s clear they are betting on safety and convenience.

The remote control can be fastened to the driver’s side visor, or next to the gear shift, or anywhere convenient for that matter. Certain models will also feature MSN(R) Direct, which will provide useful info like live traffic updates, local gas prices, weather reports, as well as local movie times. In addition, other features are 4.3″ LCD touch screens, speaker-quality sound, High Sensitivity receivers, text-to-speech navigation for spoken street names, millions of points of interest (POI’s), MP3 and video playback, A/V inputs for MP3 players, TV tuners, or DVD players. Comes with 2GB of internal memory and removable SD storage.

Maxian E900T is a new PMP from Korea. Some of the features are a 4.3″ TFT touch screen, interface buttons on both sides, comes in a 30GB and 60GB version. Has the usual memory slot for SD cards, and a Li-Ion battery that has 4000mAh capacity. It has both music and video playback, a DMB receiver, GPS navigation, even a dictionary.

The Windows CE-based system boasts an 800 x 480 4.3-inch touchscreen, support for WMV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DiVX / XviD, H.264, WMA, AAC, MP3, and OGG formats. The E900T is capable of outputting 720p HD video, sports Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound, and Burr-Brown audio circuitry which outputs via S/PDIF. In it’s car mount it turns into a full featured GPS navigator. Basically, this is an all in one PMP that looks pretty promising.